For the past 17 years A&M veterinarian researchers have been injecting pregnant sheep with alcohol to attempt to simulate the effects of binge drinking in pregnant women, hoping to unlock new information about fetal alcohol syndrome, according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Click through the slideshow to see more strange experiments performed on animals in the name of science.

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For the past 17 years A&M veterinarian researchers have been...

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A mouse with two dads

Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center used genetic engineering to make a baby mouse using the DNA of two male mice. According to LiveScience.com, the researchers turned XY cells from one mouse into X stem cells, then mated those stem cells with XY cells from the other male mouse. The baby mouse made from male-only DNA then was born from a female mouse.

Scientists funded in part by Taser International wanted to know why meth-intoxicated suspects kept dying when police used Tasers on the suspects. So, Popular Science reports, they gave methamphetamines to 16 sheep and then shocked them with Tasers. None of the sheep died as a result of the Tasings.

Surgeon Vladimir P. Demikhov was the first person to perform a successful coronary artery bypass, while experimenting on a dog on July 29, 1953. Unfortunately, he also grafted the head and front legs of a puppy onto the neck of an adult dog, exposing Demikhov to ridicule in the scientific community.

This study gave MDMA to rats to see what the drugs’ effect would be on the rats’ sexual activity. They found that the drug decreased sexual activity, especially in male rats. However, when the researchers blasted “loud music, which is commonly present in certain environments such as rave parties,” the rats’ sexual activity increased.

Researchers in Japan gave heart transplants to mice and then exposed them to either opera music, classical music, a single sound frequency or Enya (yes, Enya). They found that the mice exposed to opera or classical music recovered better after surgery than the control mice. Those exposed to Enya did not.

Once, a guy in Singapore wondered how Chinese softshell turtles pee. And because this guy happened to be a scientist, he found a way to get paid to discover how Chinese softshell turtles pee, and it’s really weird. If you want to know, Chron.com’s SciGuy has the answer.

Photo: Frank Greenaway, Getty Images

The question every 4-year-old has thought of

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Mice with a little extra “swagger”

Scientists at MIT were trying to study the effects of yogurt on obesity in mice when they discovered something they weren’t looking to find out: Mice that ate yogurt had larger testicles. This was in 2012, and we’re not sure why but most yogurt commercials are still aimed at women.

Researchers from the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris wanted to see if a dog robot could be used to study dog social behaviors by seeing whether the dogs would react to a furry robot in the same way they would to a real puppy. The dogs did approach the furry dog robot to investigate it, but decided it was scary and stayed far away.

In 1997, tissue engineer Joseph Vacanti, MD, grew a human ear on the back of a mouse, now known as the Vacanti mouse. Now, the “ear” was made of cow cells and was more like ear-shaped cartilage than an actual ear, but it’s still just as creepy and ear-shaped.

Photo: Dra_schwartz, Getty Images

Most disturbing ear since Van Gogh’s ear

In 1997, tissue...

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Watchdog group says that A&M researchers are feeding sheep alcohol and killing them

A Washington-based watchdog group wants Texas A&M University researchers to stop the use of sheep and baby lambs in federally-funded alcohol experiments done at the school, which have cost taxpayers millions of dollars since 1997. They've even reached out to Senator Ted Cruz, a vocal opponent of government waste, to see if he will rally for their cause.

According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) for the past 17 years A&M veterinarian researchers have been injecting pregnant sheep with alcohol to attempt to simulate the effects of binge drinking in pregnant women, hoping to unlock new information about fetal alcohol syndrome. According to the group’s press release, all of this work has been funded with $5 million in federal grant money from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which is part of the National Institute of Health.

Dr. John Pippin, who spent 30 years as a Dallas-based cardiologist before becoming the director of academic affairs for PCRM, says that the pregnant sheep are injected with the alcohol in the weeks near the end of pregnancy in four-day cycles.

"The blood alcohol levels run from .20 to .26," said Pippin. ".08 is legal intoxication limit in Texas for a person." That's about equal to eight or nine shots of hard liquor, he says.

Shane Hinckley, a spokesman for Texas A&M, said Thursday that the university has no comment on anything associated with the PCRM's press release or its accusations.

According to the PCRM press release, an individual sheep is euthanized so researchers can remove the baby lamb to dissect the brain to study the effects of its mother's alcohol intake. Researchers need the lamb to be near-term in the womb, he says.

Pippin is a former animal researcher, and says he did heart research using dogs briefly in the 80s. In his view, he doesn't know why A&M researchers are even doing this study, and since 1997 no less.

"That paradigm of using animals to study human diseases has failed. Using dogs to look at heart disease, mice for cancer, you can go through any of these and see a long history of animal research with little result," Pippin says. To his knowledge nothing has come outof this research, 17 years on. He notes that the impact of alcohol is well known on human brain development.

"They are doing this because they have the money to do it," says Pippin. "We have found nothing that has advanced medical knowledge of fetal alcohol syndrome in women."

Pippin believes that this research is being done essentially as busywork. He doesn't think that the studies done on the sheep transpose to pregnant women.

Simply put, the research is cruel, and its irrelevant for humans, Pippin contends.

According to the PCRM release, Pippin has filed a complaint against Texas A&M with the Texas Office for the Prevention of Developmental Disabilities, which administers the Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Collaborative.

As for why they have reached out to Senator Cruz, they see him as an ally when it comes to what they are calling wasteful spending—the estimated $5 million over the past 17 years.

“Some say that Ted Cruz shut down the entire government, and if he can do that, he can shut down these wasteful experiments in his own state,” Pippin said in the press release . This was in the wake of the group taking out two newspaper ads and two billboards denouncing the research . The billboards are located near the A&M campus.

Jeanne McVey, a spokesperson for PCRM, says it's already well-known that alcohol causes damage to the brains of children in the womb. The PCRM’s view is that this federal funding should be used for programs to help at-risk mothers instead of boozing up innocent animals for reasons that seem hazy to them.

"Why are they spending so much money getting sheep drunk to study something that has already been researched and decided?" asks McVey.

"There is so much concern about the shortage of funds for medical research, so why are we not spending this money to help people?"

Senator Cruz's camp didn't respond to a request for comment on Thursday afternoon.